What happened to Windows Secrets?

This has gone on so many days, that I thought I’d ask you (even though this is the Askwoody address): When I try to access the Windows Secrets Lounge, at https://windowssecrets.com/forums/ (and this has been going on for many days) I get “This site can’t be reached
windowssecrets.com refused to connect.”

a) Can you tell me why?

b) If it has truly disappeared, I think it would be nice to mention it on Askwoody. I’ve been gone for a few days, so it’s possible you did already mention it. Thanks for any clues, and hoping things are OK,

This caught me flat-footed. As you know, I haven’t written for Windows Secrets Newsletter for several years — since August 2015, in fact. I had no idea the site was down but, looking at it now, sure enough — there’s nothing there, there. I have no idea what happened to it.

WindowsSecrets.com began as BriansBuzz.com in February 2003. In July 2004, the service merged with WoodysWatch.com, and the combined site was renamed WindowsSecrets.com.

Brian Livingston was the editorial director of WindowsSecrets.com from July 2004 to August 2010. The company was sold to iNet in late 2010, and iNet was sold to a US-based conglomerate called Penton Media in January 2015. In September 2016, the British firm Informa plc bought Penton for $1.56 billion. As far as I know, Informa still holds the purse strings.

As for WindowsSecrets.com… I haven’t a clue. I see that other Penton publications’ sites — notably WindowsITPro.com and WinSuperSite.com (Paul Thurrott’s original sites) — now re-route to ITProToday, which is a name I haven’t heard before. As best I can tell, ITProToday doesn’t have a forum.

Anybody out there know anything definitive?

UPDATE: A few minutes ago, on Feb. 20, Windows Secrets Newsletter sent out a message that says:

Hello to subscribers

First, we’d like to apologize for the delay in reaching out. We had hoped that our service interruption would be only a day or two long, and we could resume publication last week. We were wrong.

Here’s why you haven’t gotten a newsletter and you can’t access the site: There was an unprecedented hardware failure across several systems. The IT department has been working to remedy the failure and restore the affected sites from backups. We don’t have a timeline for restoration – but we don’t want you to think we’ve completely disappeared.

You’ll receive double editions of the newsletter after the IT department has restored the site.

Again, our apologies for not reaching out sooner. We’ll keep you informed of future developments.

Just got an email from GW: This has gone on so many days, that I thought I’d ask you (even though this is the Askwoody address): When I try to access[See the full post at: What happened to Windows Secrets?]

Yes, their Twitter feed is still up but, as Cybertooth mentioned, silent since Feb 12. Their Facebook page https://web.facebook.com/pg/WindowsSecrets/posts/ is also still up but seems to be inactive except for a number of commenters complaining. I was a free subscriber to WS for a long time having been brought there by Gizmo’s TechSupportAlert. It was great while it lasted but the best thing is that it brought me to AskWoody!

My understanding, there was a hardware failure and they are working to bring the servers back online. That said this process is taking a long time. (anyone heard of cloud servers as a temp measure?) At least some sort of redirect with a notification of what is going on would be nice.

1 user thanked author for this post.

I’m one of the volunteer admins in the Windows Secrets Lounge forums. I’ll tell you what I can.

The WSL forums went down on Monday 12th Feb (at ~1436 GMT, where I’m based) and this was reported to our Penton contact very soon afterwards. A couple of hours later I learned that the problem also affected other Penton websites.

I’ve been asked to keep internal communications private so can’t really say a lot more except to pass on that the backend IT teams have continued to work on the sites throughout this period.

The latest news – coincidentally just an hour ago – is that windowssecrets.com is apparently the closest to recovery. I don’t know a timescale but it sounds hopeful the site will be back up again shortly.

Firefox can’t connect to WindowsSecrets, probably for the reason Rick Corbett mentioned. As for ITPro (www.itprotoday.com), I get a totally blank page. Again, if it’s a Penton/Informa site, it’s probably farther down on the restoration totem pole & down for the same reason as WindowsSecrets.

I remained loyal to WS after the takeover by Penton mainly because of Patchwatch, although that has been increasingly less relevant unless you’re on Windows 10, especially with monthly rollups meaning you no longer have the option to be selective in your patching. Yes we have Group B here but even that is becoming more difficult to sustain.

I’ve also noticed recently that the newsletters are almost exclusively geared to articles about MS Office and Word.

I hope the site returns and that the newsletters are also resumed, but both need some improvement without which I’m unlikely to renew my sub later in the year. If they do not get back to normal then I shall of course pursue Penton (the site and newsletter are still run by them no matter that they are only a subsidiary company these days) for a refund for this year’s sub, and given the amount of downtime thus far they really ought to be extending the sub period anyway.

Meanwhile, this site here is where it’s at!

Talking of which, did the upgrade happen on Sunday night? I haven’t noticed any improvement in performance since then and when I initially submitted this comment it appeared in the middle of the page timed an hour and a half before the following comments, so something would seem a bit awry.

Currently the site belongs to Penton Business Media, Inc according to the whois query. Their domain is due for renewal 2018-02-23, but taking a look at the corporate site (penton.com) that too is down. Most likely a major outage on their behalf taking down a few things on the way.

is not that 2019 2 23 ?

🍻

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

I used to subscribe to WindowsSecrets but stopped after switching to Linux. There used to be so many magazines that supplied us with info but most users don’t care for that level of info anymore. I come to Woody’s site to see what’s going on in the Windows world but I really don’t care, life is so much easier now.

Susan Bradley’s Patch Watch (along with columns by Fred Langa and Tracey Capan), were the essential draw for me; of course, only Susan Bradley had hung-on.

@kirsty pointed out in reply to my comment that Susan Bradley is heavily involved with http://patchmanagement.org/ (in addition to her own company). Still, if she should be looking for a new home for Patch Watch… .

I remember a week or so ago Thurrott mentioned something about his old site as he referenced a old article he wrote back then. He casual said something to the effect that he didn’t have much good to say about the group that took over that site. I noticed to that WinSupersite had switched over, didn’t know when because I don’t go there much. Had not been on Windows secrets but their Facebook page shows paid subscribers upset about lack of access for over a week. No explanation or reply on their Facebook page?

First, we’d like to apologize for the delay in reaching out. We had hoped that our service interruption would be only a day or two long, and we could resume publication last week. We were wrong.

Here’s why you haven’t gotten a newsletter and you can’t access the site: There was an unprecedented hardware failure across several systems. The IT department has been working to remedy the failure and restore the affected sites from backups. We don’t have a timeline for restoration – but we don’t want you to think we’ve completely disappeared.

You’ll receive double editions of the newsletter after the IT department has restored the site.

Again, our apologies for not reaching out sooner. We’ll keep you informed of future developments.

1 user thanked author for this post.

Yep, and I think I found it by a link on Woody’s site. Found Woody’s site from a link in a book of his I bought on Windows XP way back. WSL used to have a different logo with a green “Lounge Lizard”in it. Brings memories of happier days when things weren’t messed up like they are today.

I wonder if they will come back with ‘Windows’ in the site name. I thought Microsoft had a law firm chasing down people using the Windows trade mark name and demanding they cease and desist. Does it not apply to companies, just products?

Windows Secrets seem to have a close relationship with Microsoft (I have no proof, it is just an assumption), so maybe they will get a pass if they get the letter. The new name, if it goes that way could be WinSecs (no, that’s no good, sounds too much like insects), so how about SecWin (as in second wind). Now I’ve lost it – time to quit.

Way back in time I used to access their site but have not checked them out in several years. For those who work there, I hope they get back online soon.

2 users thanked author for this post.

I was also a Langa List subscriber and was introduced to Windows Secrets in the same way! I hope Fred’s doing well these days, as I haven’t heard anything about him since his departure from Windows Secrets a few (2 or 3?) years ago by now. I do recall it was said he was absent due to either personal or family issues, like taking a sabbatical of sorts.

Windows Secrets Newsletter and Office Watch are two entirely different animals. Office Watch (formerly Woody’s Office Watch) is still going, although I had a rather contentious split with its current owner a decade ago.

1 user thanked author for this post.

As a subscriber to WS for several years, I’ve been disappointed by the current problems with the website. Whenever I try to access the site, I get the following message:

This site can’t be reached

windowssecrets.com refused to connect.

Neither Penton or WS have sent me an email explaining what the problem is and when I can expect it to be resolved. This makes me wonder if they’ve lost my (and that of others) account information. On top of this current lack of communication, attempts to contact the editor several months ago were fruitless.

Last summer I subscribed again largely because of Ms. Susan’s Patch Watch. Her column this month on askWoody was great, and made me glad I support this site. Probably, I will continue to read askWoody and lose interest in WS.

I’ll top that: even though I also had found their issues becoming lighter on useful content for a while, I reflexively paid for a yearly renewal in EARLY December, got my last Email from them in MID-December, and have now taken action through PayPal to get a refund (if that’s still possible). Before I took this action, an Email to “Editor@WindowsSecrets.com” went unanswered, although it was accepted by their mail server.

FWIW, the PayPal “dispute” confirmation Email refers to “margaret.mccartney@penton.com” as being associated with that account. But there has been no sign of life from that person, or anyone else at Windows Secrets or Penton…

My paid subscription to WS ran out in October 2017, and I renewed it to October 2018. As from the expiry date in 2017, I ceased to receive the newsletters. I sent an email explaining that I had paid up front for another 12 months but was not receiving anything. This email elicited a “Read” response, but nothing further, still no newsletters.

I did find the Forums useful, and have contributed from time to time, but now they too have gone away. A once great resource, especially when Fred Langa was around, but now sadly in the trash can.

1 user thanked author for this post.

I renewed my subscription last June, but the last newsletter I received was last November. I have repeatedly sent them notes, they have repeatedly said that my subscription is on track… Now, I asked for a refund and they say that their servers are down so they can’t send newsletters and can’t refund anyone for newsletters they aren’t receiving. After paying for this for more than 10 years I’m shocked at the lack of professionalism.

1 user thanked author for this post.

I just Googled the term “windows secrets down” and scrolled through the listings until I came to their (WS’s) twitter feed listing. Clicked on that to see what’s listed there to see if I could find some kind of update on the site being down. Instead, I found a little teaser at every tweet of WS’s for another site called myitforum.com. Going to that site produced a statement saying

Our sites are currently under maintenance.

Please try back later.

We apologize for any inconvenience.

Penton

So, this makes me think that Penton is wrapping things into one neat package for everyone to use instead of having four or five different sites for each group. I.E. I think Windows Secrets may be folded into this new site, myitforums.com, and any newsletter subscriptions passed on to the new site somehow.

BTW, I’m a former WS subscriber, having migrated to it from the Langa List when Fred folded it into WS.

6 users thanked author for this post.

I’ve had a reply back that work is still progressing and that a ‘text mode’ version of Windows Secrets Lounge is being tested.

It would be unfair for me to post more except to say that one company taking over another is invariably painful for all concerned, and nearly always results in ‘lessons learned’… particularly when people with account details (like Twitter and Facebook) move on.

I’m positive that nobody at Penton or Informa had any idea how badly a ‘catastrophic’ hardware failure would affect Windows Secrets Lounge.

Yup, it’s back to the original message again “Error 503: Back End Fetch Failed.”

My newsletter subscription is up in July so I doubt if I will renew. I certainly hope that the Lounge keeps going since I have a feeling that a lot of subscribers are going to drop the newsletter after this debacle.

Don't take yourself so seriously, no one else does 🙂
Grp. A with 2 Win 7 Pro, also 2 Win 10 Pro currently 1803 (1 Desktop, 1 Laptop).

A) When will the site be back? This has been going on for WAY TOO LONG!!

B) Will there be compensation for the unavailability?

C) I haven’t been receiving newsletters since December?

D) What the h*** is going on ? We had a great newsletter and GREAT RELIABLE SERVICE for years

E) I worked in a datacenter for years. If we had been down for more that 24 hours. someone else would be doing recovery?

F) Have you considered outsourcing your data center to someone who knows what they are doing?

G) You would have thought that there was a disaster recovery plan. Obviously not!

H) It is not hard to put up a ‘dummy’ landind page, that keeps customers up to date!!

At this point I am disgusted with your service. I would be ashamed to even call it service.

They replied with:

Hi-The website is currently down due to a server being broken, We are working to get it back up and working. We do not have an ETA at the moment unfortunately. All of our servers are down so the newsletter probably never was sent out. . Once the site comes back up I can access your account to check on what the problem is.

Note the words “All of our servers are down”

Something very strange is going on, and IMHO, we are being fed a shovel of ….

The website is currently down due to a server being broken, We are working to get it back up and working. We do not have an ETA at the moment unfortunately. All of our servers are down so the newsletter probably never was sent out. . Once the site comes back up I can access your account to check on what the problem is.

I have tried to log on to the forum and Windows Secrets and got an error both times. Phone numbers have been disconnected and my email bounced backed to me. Have a paid up subscription but no newsletter. I have a feeling they have gone by the wayside and closed up shop. Well another one bites the dust….sad I really liked that newsletter and I got a lot of good useful information from it.
OH! Well! Live and learn.

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